


Mornings After

by simplecoffee



Category: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:36:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplecoffee/pseuds/simplecoffee
Summary: "Sorry," he says. "It's just, I have a headache, and you're who I'd usually ask to, uh, kill me to get rid of it, so - "





	Mornings After

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scioscribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scioscribe/gifts).



_When she kisses him, it's fierce. She's bleeding out, ripped apart, sprawled under him where he leapt in front of her just a split second too late. There are others rustling toward them to avenge the mere one they've killed, his dominant arm is crushed to pieces, Rita is barely alive, and she uses what strength she has left to pull him close and kiss his temple, cradling him defiantly against her shoulder when she's the one who's dying._

_He doesn't know, by now, whose blood is which._

-

They march on Paris, the morning after. There's no fighting to be had on the beaches, no glory on the landing grounds; no signs of mimic life on hills nor streets - only a few brave humans and the lingering smells of death and fear.  
  
Cage and Rita lead the charge. He walks a step behind her and to the left, on guard in perfect formation, the only one who knows, for certain, that the war is over.  
  
At sundown, they halt. Unanimous reports flood in from the Russians, Germans and Chinese: there's no resistance, all's clear. Not a single mimic left.  
  
"We have no casualties, Major," Rita says, deliberately light, as they power down their exosuits for the day.   
  
"No casualties, Sergeant," Cage replies, and offers nothing further.  
  
"It looks," she says, meeting his eyes, "as through the enemy's dead."  
  
"That is what it looks like, yes," he says, and then he lets her nod and walk away.  
  
-  
  
He removes his rank insignia from his collar at the bar. He's finished with the camera crew before the rest of the troops arrive; made sure they're well fed and watered, pointed out the angles they'll be playing when the press arrives tomorrow. After that, he's just another face at the counter, hands shaking with cold, staring blankly into a nearly-empty glass in sudden exhaustion.  
  
" - I said  _six_ , bitch," says a voice close beside him, and he starts, an elbow knocking against his shoulder as Nance hauls two of seven beer mugs into her arms. "Can you count? Jesus, man - "

 _"Nance,"_ he stammers before he can stop himself, and she turns her glare on him.  
  
"Major," she says, wary but somehow still sounding about a second from calling him a bitch, and he wants to hug her close. "Cage, was it?"  
  
"Yeah," he says, scrambling for an answer. "Cage - just Cage, let's not with the... I - You're from J Squad, I've - heard about you guys - look, I got the extra drink, take it with you, don't worry about it."  
  
"Huh," she says, studying him carefully, and he must pass muster, because by some miracle the next thing she says is, "Come sit with us, Cage."  
  
He's so tired he can barely move, but he grabs two more mugs and follows her. They're all there - Skinner and Griff and Ford and Kimmel and Kuntz - all there and alive and getting right on each other's nerves, and Cage thinks he might actually cry, or say something else stupid he won't get away with as easily this time. But then he gets tucked between Nance and Ford, introduces himself and gets to listen to their familiar chatter, and they're _warm_ , they're all so warm, and the drinks dull the ache in his chest, just a little bit.  
  
-  
  
It's hard to get used to sleeping again. Hard to get used to the fact that there will be a tomorrow, and a steady succession of days after that. Hard to shut his eyes, when the heat of the liquor wears off and the damp European chill starts to settle deep into his bones; hard to tell, when he wakes up shivering, if the deaths he's been dying all night were dream or thought or memory.  
  
It takes him twenty minutes to remember how to shave.  
  
Rita watches him give his spiel to the press. Ragtag bunch of misfits rise as heroes, nations march together as one; destiny, strategy and pincer moves - roads he could have walked with greater ease several lives ago. He makes sure she doesn't hear him gently nudge them all in the direction of her name: the Angel of Verdun is the knight of the Louvre is the truth of Operation Downfall. She's a household name already, known and loved across the world, even if that world will never know how much she suffered so it could live.  
  
"Nice work," she says quietly when the troops assemble later, and he almost trips over his own feet mid-march.  
  
"Someone's gotta do it," he says awkwardly, and she gives him a nod.  
  
"Think we're gonna find any live ones today, Cage?"  
  
"Sure hope not." She raises an eyebrow at him, and he stamps down the nervous laugh building in his chest, concentrates on the fact that she's breathing. "Those things put up a hell of a fight, Sergeant."  
  
She lowers her eyebrow, after a pause.  
  
"Damn right they do," she says finally. "You are _damn_ right they do."  
  
"Hey," he says, just as Farell's voice draws nearer on its way to interrupt them. "So, you ever met J Squad?"

-  
  
J Squad lets them both have room at the table. Or, to be accurate, Kuntz keeps talking about his theory that the mimics all dropped dead of an alien plague, and Skinner and Nance nod at them both and squish up to give them space to sit. Cage is on the outside this time, colder than in yesterday's milling crowd, head starting to ache where he's sure he split it open once on the beach, and Rita's not the best of talkers at the best of times; but they both join in the conversation, and they both laugh a little by the end of the night.

-

_When she kisses him, it's frantic. Love is a hell of a cover, even in a military HQ, but he's astounded that she'd try it - until the guard clocks them anyway, and she bites his lip as they separate._

_She pulls her Colt on him again, and pulls the trigger with her eyes closed._

-  
  
They advance for three days, and the nights slowly get easier. Cage grows accustomed to the cold filling his lungs, to huddling with Rita and the squad around a stove in the evenings, to having to heal when he nicks his cheek with his razor, hands still out of practice. To sometimes aching from old wounds he's surer and surer are ways he died.  
  
Dreaming, just like everything else, is easier when you've done it before.  
  
Rita looks at him thoughtfully from time to time, but lets it go. Sometimes she sees him leaning a little too hard into the others when they flank him at meals, or clutching the wrist he broke at the dam or the ankle he snapped a few times at the barn, and they share a look that borders on some kind of understanding and he almost tells her - almost breaks, and then chokes on the words. Thinks of her lying dead on the beach, in the barn, in London, in his dreams. Wonders if he owes it to her to tell, or if she might be happier spending her life not knowing at all.  
  
Their fourth day out, the order comes from General Brigham to split up. They'll cover more ground that way, he says, be able to call the victory faster, and Cage doesn't hear his next few sentences over the rushing in his ears. When Farell decides to put J, K and L under his and Rita's joint command, he tries not to sway on his feet with relief; tries not to shake at the touch when she awkwardly pats his shoulder as they file out.  
  
-  
  
They do cover more ground that way. They leave the exosuits behind, take to holing up in abandoned buildings instead of pitching camp every night, and not one of them has had to fire a weapon since the mimic omega blew.  
  
And then one evening there's a rustle in a bush, and Rita draws her gun in one sudden, fluid motion, and Cage feels himself flinch backward from her. Reels a couple of steps before freezing; swallows the fear in his throat.

It's a cat. She holsters her weapon, says nothing to him until they're indoors in the flickering light from the stove the squad set up for heat, half obscured by shadows before she turns on her heel.  
  
"Cage," she says, barring his way forward into the empty hall, "talk to me."  
  
"Rita," he says quietly in return.  
  
"Did you have something to do with Operation Downfall."

"No, I did not," he whispers, which is technically true. 

" _\- Did you loop in time_ , don't be an arse, Cage, I've seen the way you look at me, I'm not stupid."

" - Yeah," he manages, his voice giving out on him halfway. "Okay, yeah. I killed an alpha by accident, and...your - your middle name is Rose."  
  
She pauses and then nods, her face unreadable in the dark.  
  
"You killed the omega, didn't you," she says bluntly. "It was you."  
  
_It was us_ , he thinks, and takes a breath, and tells her, "We did."  
  
This time, when she kisses him, it's gentle; a soft press of the lips, and she's gone. The feeling of her lingers, as it has so many times before, and he's not sure if he's drowning, even though he knows what drowning feels like. 

-  
  
He tells her the story, more or less, in stolen moments, in broad strokes; the parts they can laugh about, anyway. They're still soldiers by day, even if they both know now the fighting's done; they still have a platoon to lead and campfire tales to tell and hear. Ford sits them all down and tells his tale of his own accord, Kimmel tells his, there's joyous laughter, the spectre of war lifting from their tables and their hearts. Nance is happier, the boys are happier, and if Cage still ends each day in shards of pain from previous lives, he tries not to let it get to him as he watches them learn to live theirs again.  
  
Rita cuts her hair. She does it herself, a rough-hewn bob that catches the light and looks like a halo around her head, and Cage can't take his eyes off her, can't breathe, can't remember who it was to first call her an angel.  
  
"Have I got something on my face?" she says, and he smiles softly and shakes his head and turns away to blink, and then her hands are on his face, pivoting him back to her.  
  
This time, when she kisses him, it's an order. Rough, claiming, _real_ , unlike anything he remembers, and he's dizzy with the need to be held even as she's pinning him to the wall. She frees his arms - but only his arms - to gather a fistful of his hair, and he finally lets himself reach for her, rest his hands on her waist as she moves him where she wants him, and then she gives him a safeword and he  _understands_. When she presses firmly down on his shoulders, he's willing, and wanting, and he readily sinks to his knees.  
  
-  
  
A few nights later he brings her tea, and she laughs at him.   
  
"Sorry," he says. "It's just, I have a headache, and you're who I'd usually ask to, uh, kill me to get rid of it, so - "  
  
"You're an idiot, Cage," she says, and he puts on his most winning smile and holds out the flask he's carrying; she takes it. "Yeah, come in."  
  
"I remembered how you like your tea," he offers, which is true. He got the tea from Skinner and the sugar from Griff, and sent them off to their own far corners of the abandoned hotel they're in.  
  
Rita considers it, and waves him over to the bed, where he collapses a little too heavily; he wasn't lying about the headache, either. "You want some too?"  
  
"Sergeant, I thought you'd never ask."  
  
"There's a lot you thought I'd never ask, soldier," she says, and he has to laugh.  
  
She gives him the flask as though it's Kimmel's stash of whiskey, and he takes a swig and hands it back to her as though that's exactly what it is. He's not a big fan of tea, but it's warm, and that might just be all he needs; the cold is getting to him somewhat more than on most nights.  
  
"Are you falling asleep, Cage," she says, suddenly looming over him, a little more gently than he's used to. "Cage, hey - hi, there."  
  
He blinks, wondering when he'd closed his eyes. "Oh. Sorry?"  
  
"Not what I meant - at least lie down." She's frowning, which makes him kind of want to obey, but also to explain. "It's been a long day."  
  
It has, so he does lie down, and feels her sit down next to him; a hesitant hand pats his hair, all of twice.  
  
"Did you hurt?" he says in response to the hand. "After you came out of your loop, did you feel any pain from the times you died?"  
  
"I did, for a while," she says. "It faded after about a week. I wondered about you."  
  
"I can't remember where I broke which bone any more."  
  
Rita sighs, and he hears the metallic clink of her setting the flask down on the floor.  
  
"It passes, Cage," she says. "And the dreams will, too, but they'll never completely leave. I'm sorry."  
  
He blinks his eyes open as she lies down beside him, and offers her a change of subject.  
  
"What d'you think you're gonna do when they call the war?"  
  
"I don't know," she says, taking it. "Go home, get a job of some kind. Become a librarian, maybe."  
  
"A librarian," he says, looking over and catching sight of the relaxed smile on her face. "Huh."  
  
"You'd be surprised how likely librarians are to survive an apocalypse," Rita says, and she's definitely grinning now. "How about you? Gonna farm cranberries?"  
  
"Tomatoes," he says, "but no. I mean - I don't - know. I don't know much, any more."  
  
She nods, grave for an instant of quiet understanding, and then turns on her side towards him, smiling again. "I think you'd make a great chat show host."  
  
"Oh, come _on_ ," he groans, and she laughs into his shoulder, and his heart stops dead in his chest for just a second or two. He's never heard her laugh like this before, not even at the antics of the squad, and he wants to reach out and tuck her tousled hair behind her ear, touch her jaw, kiss the very corners of her smile, but instead he just smiles back and lets her have her moment, drinks in the sight of her.  
  
He's not sure when his eyes close again, but he wakes up under a blanket, his hand holding the arm that she's flung over him in her sleep. It's an echo, but unfamiliar, almost pitch-painfully different from the kind of intimacy he remembers, and when he has an unexpected coughing fit, he's almost grateful that he has to leave so as not to wake her.  
  
-  
  
The Western front has been unchallenged for almost three weeks, and he wakes up in pain. Again. What else is new.  
  
It's his back and shoulder, this time, aching miserably every time he dares to breathe. Rita raises an eyebrow at him when he doesn't eat, but things like that happen often enough that neither likes to ask the other about it. Nance rolls her eyes, and eats his sandwich.  
  
Cage coughs off and on all day, and politely excuses himself from the squad table that evening when Griff happens to genially shake his arm.

-   
  
Rita finds him curled up in her bed, shivering with pain, and he safewords when she touches him.   
  
"I'm sorry," he says, stricken, the words spilling from him without permission. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just don't feel well."  
  
"It's all right, Cage," she says, holding her empty hands up for him to see, the barest hint of naked worry in her tone of practiced calm. "Come on now, what's wrong? You can tell me."  
  
"I'm okay," he whispers, forcing his breathing back under control. "Think it's just a cold. Kinda...had to happen, with the weather - god, Rita, I'm sorry."  
  
"Hey," she says. "Look at me. Is it okay if I touch you now?"  
  
He nods, and she softly strokes his hair with just her fingertips, and he almost, almost sobs aloud. Forces himself to stay still and not flinch from her again. It makes so little sense; Griff's shaking him had _hurt_ , but he _wants_ Rita to touch him, so damn badly he can't breathe; he wants her to touch him, but not like this. He doesn't know how, but not like _this_. And then he thinks, suddenly, _If I die this time, it's for real._  
  
- 

_When she kisses him, it's determined. They've all been dead since the moment they touched down on the beach tomorrow, been dead since they fell in Paris, dead since the morning of Verdun. They've both been dying for so long they can't tell how to live any more; only how to make their deaths count for something. Save the world, win the war - and get to sleep. He thinks it might be worth it just to sleep._

_"You're a good man, Cage," she says, and he kisses her back; how he kisses her back._

-  
  
When he wakes, the general has announced the end of the war.  
  
It's three weeks to the day since they marched, and Cage thinks he's lost the past twelve hours. He makes himself somewhat presentable anyway, and lets Rita dose him with an aspirin, which breaks a fever he didn't know he had. He's beginning to suspect this is not a cold.

Shaking hands with the new press crew hurts. He's not sure how it came to this, how the UDF dress uniform's suddenly weighing on him like the exosuits never did. Kimmel and Nance tell him he should be in medical, should be lying down, but he doesn't want even more strangers touching him, so he just puts on a smile and spins a story all over again.  
  
"Manifest destiny, eh?" Rita says, a worried hand on his arm in the chaos as the camera crews pack up afterwards. "D'you really believe we were all born heroes, Cage?"  
  
"Oh, we're all born heroes _now_ ," he says, a little bit hoarse, and Skinner gives him a playful, gentle shove in the ribs, and then he's on the floor gasping for breath in a pile of broken glass.  
  
This time, Rita kisses his forehead; strokes her fingers deeply through his hair. He tries to open his eyes, and fails; tries to whisper her name, but the hiss of the oxygen steals it from his lips. When he reaches blindly upward, she catches his hand in hers, and kisses it, too.

-  
  
They end up airlifting him to London. He spends the better part of a week in a feverish haze; wakes up to Rita holding his hand in a blessedly heated room, and a dehumidifier buzzing cheerfully in the corner. He's not sure if he imagined having a needle stuck into his chest, but he's also really not sure he wants to know.   
  
("You came with," he croaks when he's certain that Rita, at least, is real, and she squeezes his hand and says she didn't want him to wake up alone.)  
  
When he's well enough to leave, she's the one who comes to get him. He's dressed in his uniform jacket over a warm sweater and jeans she bought him for the purpose, and she's wearing civilian clothes for the first time since she enlisted - a black suit and tie, with her rank pin on her lapel.  
  
"Have I got something on my face?" she demands, and god, laughing still hurts, that'll teach him to get ahead of himself. "C'mon, Cage, I signed you out; it's time to get moving. War's over. We're home."  
  
And so they walk out onto the streets of her hometown hand in hand. It's only fitting, Cage tells her later, that they end up at a pub together, again.  
  
This one's full of revelers wearing mimic memes on victory shirts, so no one pays much attention to the two of them once they're served. They're in a booth together, ignored by the rest of the world - or they will be until they're on TV again, anyway, but Rita has her hands in his hair, gentle but firm, all kinds of perfect, and Cage can't quite bring himself to care. She pulls him half across her lap, wraps her arms around him, rests her glass on his shoulder to whisper to him over the noise - and, this time, he finally leans in deep, and kisses her.


End file.
